Up his nose with a rubber hose

When you think of LaMarr Hoyt, you first think of that gloriously awful era of White Sox uniforms, the Carlton Fisk era, the collars and the shorts and then those weird gray ones with the red and blue stripes across the middle and the numbers on the pants.

Once you get past that, you think of '83, the year he won the Cy Young and the White Sox made the ALCS and got spanked by the Orioles, the same Orioles that went on to spank the Phils in the World Series in front of 13-year-old little Large and his mom.

After that, unless you're the type of freak who remembers things like minor league trades and the fact that Hoyt was a throw-in on the Oscar Gamble deal that brought Bucky Dent to the Yankees... unless you remember shit like that, you're pretty much tapped out on the LaMarr Hoyt front. There's nothing else to remember. Exceptin of course a boatload of cocaine.

Twenty years ago today, Hoyt suffered his third drug arrest of 1986, this one at the U.S./Mexico border. It was the third strike for LaMarr and he was out. Then-commish Peter Ueberroth banned him for all of the '87 season.

Hoyt's career had been a blow-sniffing mess since '83 anyway. The White Sox dealt him to the Pads at the end of the '84 season (and get this, among the players they got in return was a young prospect named Ozzie Guillen) and LaMarr pulled it together for a decent '85 campaign, 16-8. But in '86, all the cocaine calling cards were on the table - erratic behavior, sudden disappearances and a skyrocketing ERA. Not to mention getting arrested for cocaine a lot.

Ueberroth's season-long ban of Hoyt was eventually reduced to 60 days by an arbitrator, but it didn't help. He was a raving drug fiend and everybody knew it. The Pads had seen enough of his crap and released him. In '88, the White Sox gave him another shot but he didn't make the squad. He failed some more drug tests. His career was ruined.

Today he's clean and working for the White Sox. He probably wonders at least once a day how great he might have been if he hadn't put ten years or so up his nose. It's a thought shared by many.